Oscar Bettison, Composition

BMus (Hons.), Royal College of Music; MMus (Distinction), Guildhall School of Music and Drama; MM, Royal Conservatorium of The Hague; MFA, Princeton University; Ph.D, Princeton University.

Oscar Bettison was born in Jersey, UK. After studying in London with Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton, he attended the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague, Netherlands, where he studied with Louis Andriessen and Martijn Padding. He recently completed his Ph.D at Princeton University where his advisor was Steve Mackey. He was was a fellow at the Tanglewood (2001) and Aspen (2007) music festivals and was selected to be a participant in Luca Francesconi's Earlab 2008 in Norway and Italy in the summer of 2008. 

He is the recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music Pianist/Composer Commissioning Project (2009), a Jerwood Foundation Award (1998), the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize (1997), and the first BBC Young Composer of the Year Prize (1993). He was a Naumberg fellow at Princeton University from 2003-2007.

He has received commissions from the BBC (1996), the London Sinfonietta (1997), the New London Children’s Choir (1998), the Oxford Contemporary Music Festival (2001), the Eliza Miller Dance Company (2004), the Orkest De Ereprijs (2004, 2009), and Ensemble Klang (2006, 2009).

In addition to having works premiered on three continents (Europe, North America and Australia), his work has received press coverage in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Italy and Australia and has been featured on British Radio, BBC Television, Australian Radio, Dutch Radio, and New York Public Radio, as well as being profiled in The Times (London).

Upcoming projects include a 2010 People's Commissioning Fund Commission for the Bang On A Can All-Stars and a new work for multiple pianos commissioned by The Roundhouse in London. A recording of his evening-long work, O Death, by Ensemble Klang is due to be released in December 2009. 

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